


There's a hole in the world.

by gwmclintock88



Category: Captain America (Movies), Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, spoilers for series 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 16:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5423387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwmclintock88/pseuds/gwmclintock88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even if he never remembered her face, the Doctor knew who she was. It's why he stood here sometimes, when he had a moment or two or a hundred. He'd eventually stop coming, maybe, but for now, he needed to be here. To try to remember who she was.</p><p>And today, it seemed like someone else wanted to remember her too.</p><p>(Spoilers for Series 9, Hell-Bent)</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's a hole in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> I had this thought ever since I saw the last episode for the series. I loved it, and I loved Clara more than I could possible explain. She may not be my favorite companion (Martha and Donna keep switching for that position), but she definitely was great. 
> 
> The title and the Doctor's thoughts stem from one of the best episodes of Angel ("A Hole in the World"), though this story takes the idea a little bit differently. 
> 
> Let me know what you think and if I characterized the Doctor correctly or not.

            There’s a hole in the world. Feels like someone ought to have known. You think someone would notice, but they didn’t. They never do. They go on with their lives, eating, sleeping, breathing, being, and they pass by the hole as if nothing is wrong. But something is wrong, something is missing. It was here, at one point, but now it’s gone, never to return. It left as suddenly as it came it seems (or it would seem if any noticed).

            He never expected to come here, but there was a hole in the world. His world. He knew who she was by the things missing, the pieces of the puzzle lost to, well, time. But there was a hole in the world, and marker bore the name of the hole.

            Standing in the snow, beyond what any normal pudding-brain would consider a reasonable amount of time, he kept staring at the marker. The hole ached to be filled with something. Some kind of…feeling, something, anything to fill up this gaping chasm within his very being. The conversations they had were gone, the looks, the meanings behind everything she did erased from his memory.

            Not from the timeline of course, but it was gone, and somehow, that stole a part of him as well.

            He didn’t like this feeling, this hole inside of him. What good was the hole to him? To remind him of what he lost, or what he could have had?

            So lost in his thoughts about the hole in the world, he almost missed the soft steps of a very large man approaching. Turning, he caught sight of the man through the snow drifting to the ground.

            “Oh,” the man, a blond American, said. “I didn’t expect anyone else to be here.”

            “You knew her?” he said, pointing at the marker bearing the name of the hole in him. The man nodding, steps lightly carrying him through the snow. He bent slightly to drop a bouquet of flowers, and he wondered if he should have brought something for the hole. Maybe that would give him some answers.

            “Yeah, well, kind of,” the man said, flashing him a sad grin. “I’ve been…chasing an old friend around the world, and only just heard. Christmas is the time for ghosts after all.” They stood in silence, side by side, staring at the marker. Before he could get lost in pondering the hole again, the man turned him. “I’m Steve.”

            “The Doctor,” he responded automatically. He left his hands in his infinite pockets, even though Steve offered his, but the man didn’t appeared chaffed at the missed social convention. The Doctor felt the edges of the cards the hole gave him. Of all the items his jacket held, this one never was too far from his grip. He held onto them, hoping to feel something, some kind of connect to the hole.

            “Really?” Steve turned to look at him. The Doctor stopped playing with the edges of the cards to finally look the man in the eye.

            Steve was taller than him, broad along the chest and shoulders. The Doctor nearly scoffed as he finished his visual assessment of the man: Another soldier. It was in his stance, his hands, his eyes. He vaguely called up an argument with the hole, words about a mirror and soldiers, but it fell apart as quickly as the snow melted on his brow.

            “I had to do some reading about you,” Steve said, “never expected to see you.”

            Looking at face, another memory flitted to the surface. The Doctor remembered a fair in New York, something about Stark inventing a hovering car. Rubbish, since they wouldn’t be in vogue for at least another hundred years, but Rose begged him to go, and that face couldn’t say no to him.

            “You’re a lot taller than I remember,” he finally blurted, picking Steve’s face from the crowd around Stark’s broken hover car. Steve’s eyes grew wide at his words, and really, the Doctor shouldn’t have smiled. “Course, she didn’t give you the time of day then, what with your handsome friend and all.”

            His timeline was filled with holes. So many instances of them saving him, being there, offering him redemption and reminding him of mercy. She was there, the hole, and giving the hole a name only reminded him how many times the hole wrapped through him.

            “How…you were there?” Steve asked once he finally got his mouth working again. It always took the pudding brains a few seconds. “What-why? I didn’t read about anything happening then.”

            “Of course not,” the Doctor scoffed. His tenth face never seemed to go seeking for trouble as much as his eleventh face did, though Rose had as much of a penchant to find it as Amy ever did. Two other names lost to time, but at least he had those memories. All he had now was a hole. “It’s not like I find trouble everywhere I go. My companions usually find it for me.”

            “How…what?” Steve shook his head. The attempts to wrap his head around time travel shouldn’t have been funny, and if the hole were here, she’d stop him from laughing, but the Doctor couldn’t help himself.

            For the first time in ages it seemed, a memory of the hole from someone else. She was real, she existed and wasn’t just something he dreamt one night in the TARDIS. Someone else knew her, remembered her. Someone he never even met, which made it easier to believe the hole was real; it also meant he did this to himself. He removed the hole from his life rather than letting her lose him.

            Even if she were on her final second, she’d die knowing him. She’d die with her past.

            And at the time, what was one small hole in his past? He lived so long, seen so much, that the hole shouldn’t matter. Except it did, she mattered, and he almost convinced himself she never lived and his mind simply coped with the loneliness by creating her.

            Except Steve knew her when he was tiny, and back in the 1940s. “How did you get here?” The question finally caught up with him. He knew all manner of time travel, and except for him and Rose, he didn’t recall anything like that then.

            “I…you really don’t know who I am?”

            “No, am I? And how’d you get so big? I mean, you were so tiny back then. Smaller than Clara,” he said. His hearts clenched, a familiar feeling at thoughts of the hole. “And how did you know her?”

            “We worked together for a UNIT,” Steve freely admitted, “back when SHIELD still existed.”

            “SHIELD,” the Doctor nearly spat out their name. He tolerated UNIT simply because they let him be in charges, but the apes running SHIELD insisted on being in control, which they knew very little of when it came to dealing with Time Lords, thank you very much. HE regularly wiped their database of all mentions of him, just to irritate them a little more.

            “Yeah, well, we don’t have to deal with them anymore,” Steve said, turning to look at the marker again. “I’ve worked a bit with UNIT since then, but I was…away when they sent notice about her death.”

            The Doctor said nothing. He thought of hole, of knowing he stood witness to her death at the hands of the raven. He watched her death many times, in many of her lifetimes. When the Snow Angel pulled her from the Tardis, in the Asylum. Countless others, and all that was left was a hole in his life.

            “They said…they said you were with her when it happened,” Steve said, speaking softly. A cold wind wrapped around them as the snow picked up, but neither men moved. “Was it…how did she die?”

            “With the certainty of her convictions,” the Doctor said. “She was brave, and fearless, and heroic, and wonderful.” She was many other things and more. _And I forgot her_. He’d know her face anywhere, if only he could see it once more. One more time, and he’d fill the hole in.  One more time, that’s all it would take to fix this. If only he could see here again.

            Steve nodded, a small smile passing on his lips before he frowned once more. “I took the long way to the 21st century,” he said, answering the Doctor’s previous question. “Clara helped me adjust a bit. Mentioned traveling with you. Must have been something.”

            “I’d offer you to come along, but I think you’d take all the fun out of it for me,” the Doctor said glibly. Steve laughed, his voice echoing through the empty graveyard.

            “Yeah,” he said with a shake of his head. “Yeah, I tend to do that.” He shrugged his shoulders, the snow falling off them with his movement. “And I appreciate, but I think…I think I’m okay here. I just wanted to know that she didn’t die alone.

            “She did,” the Doctor said. He knew that much was true.

            “Then I’m glad she had a friend at the end,” Steve said. The Doctor offered a grimace, the words barely filling the hole, but they were said in comfort. He hated goodbyes, and endings, but happened, and now all that was left was a hole. 

            More words passed unsaid, more questions unanswered, but silence fell over the two men. They stood staring at the marker for a companion to both of them. While the Doctor knew her longer, he envied Steve and his memories of her. All he had left was a hole, but the hole was his, and maybe one day he’d see her again. When she returned to Gallifrey if he made it back in time.

            He didn’t know what happened to her, and he wondered if she left his side to go to her final seconds immediately. Maybe she did, but then again, maybe she didn’t. Who’s to say what she did, as those final moments only lasted as long as it took for him to wipe his memory and he awoke at the side of the road. In Nevada, USA of all places. At least there was a diner nearby with a nice waitress.

            Steve left his side eventually, leaving him to the cold and the snow, and the hole. He’d go look up the face when he got back to the TARDIS, but for now, he remained vigil over her marker, staring at the name he tried hard to remember: _Clara Oswald. 23/11/1986 – 16/08/2015. Daughter, Friend, Companion._

            There’s a hole in the world, and it seemed that someone noticed. The Doctor planned to leave the hole alone, to leave the puzzle for another day, but right now, right here, he stood watch, staring at the marker for the hole. He may not remember her voice, her character, or her very being, but she made him the Doctor. It was only right to make sure she remained Clara. It was the very least he could have done for her, even if it meant forgetting her in the end.  


End file.
